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English Wine: Kent Wineries Launch The Wine Garden Of England

The English-wine news is coming thick and fast this year. Recently I reported on the formation of the Sussex Wineries group. Now Kent are at it too. Seven of the best vineyards in Kent have teamed up to form a group that must have pretty much named itself — The Wine Garden of England. Like Sussex Wineries, the aim is to champion and develop Kent’s wine tourism.

The seven founding members (Biddenden Vineyards, Chapel Down Winery, Domaine Evremond, Gusbourne Estate, Hush Heath Estate, Simpsons Wine Estate and Squerryes Winery) are already welcoming 120,000 visitors per year between them, but with English wine tourism anticipating a boom in the ensuing years, hopefully they can raise this even further.

To achieve their aim, they’ll be working in tandem with the tourism company Visit Kent, whose CEO has described Kent as “England’s own Napa Valley”. Steady on. I mean Kent’s very nice, but… if only it had a slice of that California sun.

Their website www.winegardenofengland.co.uk is well put together and features some lovely photography, as well as a range of itineraries for wine tours. It looks like there’s more content to come though. Eventually, visitors will be able to purchase wines from all the partners from the site, as well as booking tours, which will be handy.